The Snake

A detailed Summary of The Snake

A short story by John Steinbeck, "The Snake" depicts the strange encounter between a man, Dr. Phillips, and a mysterious woman who arrives at his laboratory one night. The central theme of the tale revolves around Steinbeck's interpretation of the contrast between men and women. It appears that his idea was: Men represent reason; Women represent nature. In the story we watch as the two opposing sides meet each other in the dark laboratory.

Steinbeck uses the first two pages of the story to characterize the differences between the male character and the female. Dr. Phillips is portrayed as being a young man in seemingly good shape, as he is able to "climb up over the rocks", and having "preoccupied eyes of one who looks through the microscope a great deal" Right away Steinbeck illustrates Phillips masculinity by showing his attempt at mastering nature; when the Doctor calmly selects a cat from a cage and kills the animal in the quest of scientific knowledge, he does it because it is reasonable and logical to try and better understand the way that nature works. It stark contrast to the clean cut Dr. Phillips, the woman visitor is shown as "A tall, lean woman... dressed in a severe dark suit-her straight black ha

Now that the characters have met face to face, Phillips continues about his work while the woman waits patiently for him to finish. The tone of the story begins to change at this point away from a story about the scientific work of Dr. Phillips to a battle between the forces of man and nature. While he prepares his specimens for the experiment, Phillips tries to make light conversation with the lady by explaining his work. "Would you like to look at this first group under the microscope?" Phillips asks the woman when he is finished. "No, thank you" is the woman's response. "He turned quickly to her. People always wanted to look through the glass." In fact the woman shows no interest at all in Phillips quest to understand nature through scientific experiments; she seems solely concerned with her reasons for being at the doctor's laboratory. This fact disturbs Phillips as he is not sure what to make of her as she sits there waiting for him and gazing at him with her black eyes. While he waits for the next stage of his experiment to begin, Phillips inquires about the lady's business. She tells him that she wishes to buy a male snake from him. At first he is reluctant to agree to such a transaction because he uses the snakes to milk venom for use in experiments and because he is unsure if she knows anything about how to handle the snakes but then the lady adds a twist. She wants to buy the snake but she wants to keep him in the laboratory where she can come and look

Some common words found in the essay are:
Dr Phillips, I'm I'll, Steinbeck Snake, Patrick Finn, dr phillips, solely concerned, feed snake, understand nature, black eyes, illustrates phillips, nature story, phillips woman,

Approximate Word count = 992
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels